Chapter 76 - The First Step to Art (2/2)

With a clatter, a dip pen in Heidi’s hand fell to the ground and broke in two.

Damn, the ancients turned out to be so formidable?!

“However, this is where my point of view differs most from the people of this era. You all believe that many things are precious and rare. It is only natural and right for masters to carefully craft it and then leave them for people to pass down through the generations. But in my opinion, it is only natural for these things to be mass-produced cheaply. It’s a pity. We lost the Well of Deep Blue, and people of that generation are all dead. It’s inevitable that all of you would progress this way.”

Heidi’s expression was odd; she had an intense sense that the unfilial descendants had disappointed Ancestor once again…

Just then, Gawain’s eyes were suddenly caught by the magic circles on one of the drawings. “Hmm?”

Heidi quickly leaned forward; after spotting what Gawain’s gaze was on, she explained, “That is a magic circle to control a crystal’s spontaneous explosion. You know it. The last function when these manufactured crystals are close to disintegrating is spontaneous explosion. This layer of magic circle was branded in a location independent of other rune groups, and it was unusually simple, so it was fairly easier to restore. But I wasn’t able to restore the friend-or-foe identification portion related to this detonating magic circle. Till now, I have not found out which runes were the ones to achieve this unbelievable function. I truly lack talent in this aspect…”

“Hold on. Set aside how those identification runes were made.” Gawain interrupted Heidi’s self-criticism. All was good about this granddaughter. Except, once she felt that her Ancestor was upset, she would immediately sink into a state of self-criticism and self-reflection, and this was really troubling. She was a character who could easily be a domineering lady or a queen, yet she always seemed as if she was being bullied in front of him. “I saw the annotations you wrote here… You said that this magic circle is different from a conventional magic circle. It wasn’t that the explosion was generated after the energy in the crystal had been released to the outside world but that an ignition of energy had occurred within the crystal and took the crystal itself as an explosive too?”

Heidi faltered for a moment, then nodded. “Yes. The usual or similar magic circles would lead the energy of the storage crystal out and create an effect externally. But because the function of this magic circle is spontaneous explosion, it skips the leading step and directly ignites the energy within the crystal. At the same time, the broken crystal fragments would also have massive lethality. To be honest, I’ve never come into contact with such magic circles before. Although they aren’t complicated, any mage with a sound mind would not use them. This thing will completely destroy a precious storage crystal…”

Heidi trailed off. Clearly, she was no fool and had swiftly become aware of the uses this had.

Their gazes unanimously shot towards the ruby dish on the laboratory bench. It was as if the small amount of crystal dust in the ruby dish was sparkling once more.

This was the glow of art (convinced emoji here).

“The magical power extracted from those crystals would instantly become waste energy, but they are in a stable state when stored inside the crystal…,” Gawain summarized slowly. “Then we’ll simply not extract them. How great would it be to directly ignite them inside the crystal?”

Heidi concurred unhurriedly, “Yeah, such ‘crystals’ are produced from rocks anyway. They aren’t costly…”

Mages with a sound mind would not use an explosive magic circle that would destroy a storage crystal with it. That was because storage crystals were expensive, and they only needed to add a structure to lead the energy out of the explosive magic circle, releasing explosive magic while keeping the crystal. Since the effect was exactly the same, why the need to ruin a piece of crystal?

However, if there existed a type of crystal whose stored magical power had no way of being extracted, would it continue to be worthless?

Then, this thing would literally be made for spontaneous explosions; its properties were as straightforward and iron-headed as the person who invented it.

Countless bold ideas that made one jump for joy emerged in Gawain’s mind. These thoughts were accompanied by bright flames and stirring whistles. They were the future; they were hope; they were the sword and shield to protect the people and land; they were the rays of light that broke up all the clouds gathered from the failures of creating gunpowder…

It was art!

So utterly artistic! On the same level as the Louvre…

Gawain repressed those agitated thoughts and suddenly asked a very practical question with an odd look, “How are we going to carve an explosive magic circle on a crystal the size of a rice grain?”

Heidi had also calmed down and seriously considered this question. Following that, she said in a rather unsure tone. “Perhaps… we don’t necessarily have to carve it on the crystal because this is a magic circle with an ‘interference model’.”